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Reconstructive Plastic Surgery

In Sex Love and Obesity part 7 we left of with Superman being an unattainable man in my life, me being unwilling to tell him the truth because now that I had lost all my weight for the second time in my life I was plagued with the excess skin issues that still made me uncomfortable with my own body.

It is amazing, the shift that happens after you lose so much weight. I always thought I would lose the weight and life would be perfect. I’d lost 250 pounds, but with all the skin, I still looked like someone who suffered from obesity. I was happy with my weight loss. But, I was still ashamed of my body. I might even say I was more ashamed of my body than I had been before I lost the weight. Because quite honestly when the skin issues set in. there was this mental part that came with it. I had to face the mirror each day and see the damage I had done with my food addiction and with my struggle with obesity. It was hard enough for me to deal with. But it kept me from telling Superman the truth because I really didn’t think my heart could handle the rejection I’d feel if he couldn’t love me because of it.

It was now 2013, I’d been lying to this man for the better part of 10 years.

I was in the middle of planning my exit strategy. I was finally at a place where I knew I was leaving my husband. I had come to terms with the fact that I had to move on with my life. I had stopped working as a phone sex operator. I had accepted that my body even after reconstructive surgery, wasn’t going to be perfect and I wasn’t going to progress that career into video technology. I had started attending weight loss conventions. I had found a new passion to help others that were struggling with obesity. I wanted to do something for a living that I was proud of and I was in the middle of get the education I needed to pursue a career in the fitness and wellness industry.

It was the summer of 2013, I was in Dallas on my last hiatus from home before I started to figure out where I was going when I left. I was just about to undergo my final round of reconstructive plastic surgery. What I looked like after this, was going to be as good as it gets. This was going to be my final outcome. Whether I liked it or not I just couldn’t afford anymore reconstructive plastic surgery to fix anything else.

Superman and I were discussing meeting for the 100th time in the last 10 years. I can only guess that in his mind, we were planning another trip I would never show up for.

My life was in such an emotional place that I honestly can’t tell you how it really went down. Maybe someday I will ask Superman how he remembers it. But somewhere, during planning this trip I think we both assumed would never happen, I remember him saying something to me like, “We’ve been doing this for 10 years. Whatever it is that you need to tell me. Whatever it is you’re lying about, and you are afraid of, after all this time I deserve the truth and the opportunity to decide whether or not it is something I can deal with.”

After 10 years of loving him, years of fearing his rejection. It all came down to this moment…

I told him the entire truth.

I admitted to every lie I had ever told him. I sent real photos and I crossed my fingers held my breath and hoped that he’d be able to forgive me for everything I had put us through and love me regardless.

The following October, I got on a plane and I went to meet this man I had been in love with for nearly a decade.

A two-week trip turned into a four-week trip. We were everything I had always dreamed we would be. The trip had gone perfectly. I had known I loved him for 10 years and I wasn’t wrong. Everything I had done up to this point had been worth it. It had worked. He loved me. We were going to have a future together.

I didn’t want to leave. All my things were in Portland, I had so many loose ends to tie up. I had no job, no income, no idea where my life was going, – all I knew was that I didn’t want to be away from him. I didn’t want to say good-bye. I didn’t want to get on a plane, go back to my miserable life in Portland and face tying up all those loose ends. I just wanted that part of my life to all be over. I wanted to be with him. He wanted me to be with him. We were going to be okay.

I sobbed the entire way on the two-hour car ride to the airport to put me back on a plane.

I could hardly get out of the car when we got to the airport, my legs didn’t want to carry me. He watched me break down, watched me struggle, and part of me resented him a little bit for it. Why was he making me go back? Why didn’t he tell me not to go? Did he not see how much this was hurting? Didn’t he understand that I didn’t know if I was strong enough to face everything I had to go do?

We sat at a little table outside the path that leaded to the TSA checkpoint postponing our good-bye for as long as we could. He was on his phone. At first, I was angry. Here we were about to say good-bye, part of me questioned whether we would ever see each other again. I silently wondered if he was putting me on a plane and sending me home so that he could break up with me when I got back there instead of having to break the news to me face to face.

It wasn’t long before he sat down the phone, held my hand, looked me in the eye and in that voice that had been my solace for so many years explained to me that he had been texting his roommate and making sure that what he was about to offer was alright with him. He suggested that I didn’t have to go home, that this could be home for me now. We could have them pull my bags off the plane, put them back in the car and I could put an end to all this right then, stay with him, figure the rest out as we went.

I wanted this entire saga to be over. I wanted to not be a sex slave. I wanted to not be with someone who wanted to control me, take advantage of me. I wanted to not ever answer another phone sex call again. I wanted a normal life, with a normal man who loved me as much as I loved him.

Every single fiber in my being told me to stay.

All I wanted to do was get back in the car and go back with him. But that little voice in your head that plays the devil and angel on your shoulder started talking. How do I explain to people waiting for me back in Portland that I am not coming back? What about all the things I have there? What if they get so angry at me that they destroy all my things? What about my dog? What about my car? What about my Dad’s things? All I have is what is on the suitcases on that plane. Can I just let it all go and risk losing it all?

I didn’t want to get on that plane. But I knew that I had to. I had to go back and get the things that were important to me. Strangely enough, I suddenly had the strength to do it. His offer had given me the strength and confidence in the fact that we were going to be together in the end. I wasn’t afraid of the sting of his dismissal and rejection hitting when I got back home. His offer to let me stay right then and there told me everything I needed to know. He loved me. Somehow, after years of lying to him, he’d forgiven me. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the girl in the photos anymore. I was me, and that was who he wanted.

I got on the plane, went back to Portland and started the wheels in motion to move to the other side of the country to start a new life. Superman and Lois Lane against the world. I’d fought obesity and I’d won. I was on my way to a brand-new career, I had the man of my dreams. This story should have had a happy ending. Should have. But things don’t work out quite the way they should sometimes.

In Sex Love and Obesity Part 4 we discussed the emotional end of my marriage. How I was about to move on and how I confident that having lost all that weight I would have no problem finding happiness with someone else.

Losing weight isn’t a magic “life is great!” pill.

Shocking isn’t it? I’d spent the better part of my adult life suffering from obesity and I was 100% sure it was going to fix all my issues.

My marriage was pretty much over. Whether we were admitting it out loud of not yet, we were both exploring our options outside of the relationship on a regular basis. I guess you could say that we had decided to have an open marriage.

My father had passed away and I was struggling with dealing with the grief. In my mind I had lost the only man in the world that was ever going to unconditionally love me. Losing that unconditional love made me want romantic love even more. I wanted my happily ever after. I wanted that person in my life that I could count on to be there no matter what life brought next.

In the book about my life, the next few chapters would be called “Chasing November”

I have no idea why, but November seems to be a significant month for me regarding relationships.

In November of 2011 after a long talk with my husband, I decided to try to compensate for what I wasn’t getting out of the marriage, sex, attention, companionship, by adding a third person to our household.

So, in November of 2011 I invited an “online friend,” to come for a visit.

The first visit was wonderful. Everything about the relationship was new and exciting and perfect. We spent about 2 weeks together and I was certain that adding a second relationship to my life would make me happy. I’d get what I wanted and needed out of a relationship physically and emotionally and at the same time, my marriage could go on being what it had already been for the better part of the last 8 years. I’d continue being the submissive house slave that made sure the house was clean, the laundry was done, and all the bills were getting paid on time, and maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t resent it all so much if I had someone else that was making feel fulfilled.

I know it sounds crazy, but remember, I’d basically grown up in a BDSM related community. I’d seen these types of arrangements since I was 19 years old. To me, it made perfect sense.

In my mind adding a third person to the relationship would be a win/win situation all the way around. We’d be helping someone else get out of a living situation they wanted out of and putting a band-aid on our own problems at the same time.

All three of us were struggling financially. I was about to start a year-long process of reconstructive surgery to remove all the excess skin left after losing 260 lbs. We couldn’t afford for my husband to take time off work to be with me recovering from those surgeries. So, we decided to move someone to Oregon, put a roof over their head, and give them a chance to rebuild their life while helping me recover from my surgeries and see if there was any validity to the “Three’s Company” lifestyle.

My reconstructive surgeries happened in February, August, and then November. I blame a little of the failure of that relationship attempt on the fact that they were always taking care of me.

I blame some of it on the level of resentment that existed in the house. It created a level of tension in the house that just never faded.

I blame part of it on the fact that truthfully, it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t really want an open marriage or an open relationship. I didn’t want to be with people who were willing to share me, my affection or attention with each other, or anyone else for that matter. It wasn’t who I was or how I was built.

I was still making compromises. I still didn’t value myself enough to stand up and say, “Hey this isn’t what I want,” because I didn’t think I was worthy enough to have what I really wanted.

But I blame most of it on the fact that we argued constantly and that somehow a combination of all of that had me in another sexless relationship.

Basically that “November Magic” never appeared again.

We fought the way my family had fought with each other when I was growing up. We fought the way my mother and I had fought with each other for most of my life.

Our arguments turned into full-blown fights that escalated to the point that they became toxic and volatile. We said cruel things to each other.

Since that magic wasn’t there, neither was the attention, affection and in my mind, the love, that I was so desperately searching for. Which just lead me right back into a feeling that I obviously don’t handle very well – resentment.

A year into the situation, I was sitting there thinking, “We pay for everything for you. You haven’t had to work for a year. You have absolutely everything you could want. We moved you and your things here, we furnished your room, we pay for all your food,” and I resented that after doing all of that for someone else, I was repaid with an argumentative and unappreciative attitude. But even more I resented that the fulfillment aspect of the relationship, the love I was seeking through physicality and sexuality wasn’t there.

Don’t get me wrong, every situation has a silver lining. There were some good moments. Looking back on it 7 years later it’s hard for me to remember what they were. We I traveled a lot. We went to conventions, we visited friends and family together. But usually, no matter what we were doing we ended up in a fight and I hadn’t learned that constant conflict like that was an issue for me.

It’s not that I enjoy fighting. I don’t. But I don’t know how to disengage from an argument. I don’t know how to stop. Once it starts I’m instantly in that self-defensive mode I learned to constantly live in during my childhood and it brings out ugly parts of me.

I do better in relationships with people who are non-confrontational. People who can have very calm and rational discussions rather than arguments. People who help keep me cool and grounded with their tone and demeanor.

These are things I didn’t know about myself yet.

A dysfunctional family, a childhood of arguing, a history of emotional, physical, sexual and verbal abuse had all lead me to Obesity. I knew that. But I didn’t realize that I used food as a way of coping with feelings that were associated with them.

I was married to someone who was non-confrontational. He never raised his voice, we never argued. Even when things got heated, we had “discussions” not “disagreements.” We had been married for going on nine years and I could count the number of “fights” we’d had on one hand. Suddenly I was in a relationship were we fought constantly, and I’d hadn’t had to deal with the kinds of emotions that brought with it in any relationship before.

But when faced with them in a new relationship I quickly found that I was at a handicap. Because when I made the decision to have gastric bypass surgery and essentially ended the relationship I had with food and my ability to use it as a coping mechanism for emotions I didn’t know how to do deal with, I didn’t really have a coping mechanism left.

I had learned how to use exercise as an emotional outlet. But I was in the middle of the reconstructive surgery processes and each surgery would leave me unable to exercise for 6-12 weeks during the recovery time. So that outlet wasn’t available to me either.

Nobody had prepared me for this. Nobody had warned me how not having food as a coping mechanism might change my ability to deal with emotions and feelings. Nobody warned me that ending my relationship with food could dramatically change how I had relationships with other people.

Nobody had prepared me for the fact that once I lost all the weight I might still find myself in relationships with people who didn’t find sex as important as I did. In my mind, once I lost all the weight and had all the reconstructive surgery to remove the skin, I’d be super attractive for the first time in my life and finding someone who wanted to have an amazing and active sex life would be easy.

Nobody warned me losing weight wasn’t a magic “life is great” pill. I was learning that lesson very quickly though, I just had no idea what to do about it.